Republicans plummet in poll — just 24 percent approve

Just 24 percent of Americans now hold a favorable view of the Republican Party, and the GOP gets a higher percentage of blame for the government shutdown that it did under the Newt Gingrich-led Congress 18 years ago, according to a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.

The poll showed general public gloom. Just 14 percent of Americans think their country is “on the right track,” a figure reached only once before after the 2008 bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers triggered a cratering of the stock market and onset of the Great Recession.

Republican leaders: Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., and House Speaker John Boehner: They get overwhelming blame for federal government shutdown in new Wall Street Journal/NBC News national poll.

But President Obama’s popularity has held up and support for the Affordable Care Act (aka “Obamacare”) has actually ticked up by seven points since a September poll.

“If it were not so bad for the country, the results could almost make a Democrat smile,” said Peter Hart, a Democratic pollster who conducted the survey along with Republican counterpart Bill McInturff. An “ideological boomerang” has hit the Republicans, McInturff added.

The findings include:

–By a 53-31 percent margin, the public blames Republicans in Congress rather than President Obama for the impasse that caused the federal government shutdown.

–Seventy percent think Republicans on Capitol Hill “put politics first” in the showdown, versus only 27 percent who said they were demonstrating real leadership. By contrast, 46 percent feel Obama has demonstrated leadership, while 51 percent say he’s been playing politics.

–Seventy-three percent of those surveyed view the government shutdown as “extremely” or “quite serious,” versus 57 percent when the government shut down for three weeks in 1995: 65 percent say the shutdown has done a “great deal” or “quite a bit” of harm to the country.

–Just 24 percent have a favorable opinion of the Republican Party, the lowest figure ever in the WSJ/NBC News poll: 53 percent view the Republicans unfavorably. The Tea Party movement gets a thumbs-up from just 21 percent.

President Obama: His approval ratings, and those of Affordable Care Act, are actually up in wake of the government shutdown.

–Obama is seen favorably by 47 percent of those surveyed, unfavorably by 41 percent. Asked if they approve the job done by the 44th president, 47 percent gave Obama a thumbs up and 48 percent said they disapproved. It represents a two percent rise in Obama’s approval rating.

–The Democrats would, were an election held today, likely regain control of the U.S. House of Representatives. Asked who they’d likely vote for, Americans in the poll gave the Democrats a 47-39 percent advantage over the Republicans. The advantage last month was 46-43 percent.

The NBC/WSJ poll was conducted Oct. 7-9 and involved interviews with 800 voters across the country.

Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, the Republicans’ 2008 presidential nominee, exploded on Fox News early Friday, saying Republicans caused the shutdown and made it a political gift to the White House.He denounced the strategy of shutting down the government in an effort to repeal or eviscerate the Affordable Care Act.

“The administration wouldn’t have had the opportunity to handle it that way if we had not shut down the government on a fool’s errand that we were not going to accomplish,” McCain said. “The whole premise of shutting down the government was repeal of Obamacare.”